US child separation debacle

The practice of taking children away from parents who entered the United States illegally has been a public relations nightmare for the Trump administration. It is so inhumane that the outcry came from across the ideological divide. Even President Donald Trump’s wife and daughter spoke out against it.

For a while, Trump resorted to his usual political tactic of blaming his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, as well as Congress. In defence of the practice, Attorney General Jeff Sessions even quoted from the Bible to the effect that laws are meant to be obeyed. It was his way of countering liberal advocates’ call for Christian compassion in dealing with the immigrants.

But that evocation of the Scriptures by America’s top law enforcer didn’t impress too many people. And his smirk delivery makes one wonder whether he read the prepared text with conviction. Instead of dampening the outcry, the evocation of the Scriptures only intensified it. And so Trump made a dramatic turn-around and publicly signed an executive order banning the practice.

But while the order was enough to quell the outcry, it didn’t resolve the policy conundrum that gave rise to it in the first place. That is because the debacle wasn’t entirely of Trump’s making. It is another outcome of the political polarisation by which ideological extremes subvert commonsensical solutions. Such, of course, is the bane of democracy in developing countries. Alas, American politics is becoming just as “tribal,” as US journalists have taken to describing it.

To begin with, there is the challenge of managing a horde of central Americans fleeing their countries to escape poverty, civil strife, gang warfare or a combination thereof. In each of the past three months, more than 50, 000 people have been arrested for illegally crossing into the United States. And that’s a drop because of Trump’s campaign rhetoric and zero-tolerance policy.

Even the most strident advocates for immigrants acknowledge that this is untenable. Differences arise as to what to do about it. The Obama administration took his usually balanced approach. First, he created a special category for children of illegal immigrants who have grown up in the United States and are practically Americans.

Under his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA programme, those children are to be put on a path toward American citizenship. He extended the provisions to children who crossed into the United States on their own. As to adults with young children, they were kept in detention centres pending the mandatory court review of their request for asylum.

These sensible and humane actions might have worked, but for a number of undercutting developments. First, though the Obama administration ratchetted up the rate of deportation, his children-friendly policy encouraged families with children to have their children cross the borders alone or with them.

Then a liberal pro-immigrant group filed a lawsuit asserting that the detention of children (with their parents) was unconstitutional. Ostensibly, the goal was to protect the children, and the plaintiffs could make an argument to support that stance. But the reality is that there is a broader agenda: to thwart efforts to stem the influx of illegal immigrants. In fact, they don’t refer to them as illegal, just undocumented. It’s a dubious phrase given that everybody with a name or number is documented somewhere or another.

The plaintiff’s strategy is much like that employed rather effectively by opponents of the death penalty. Failing to ban it through legislation or the judiciary, they resorted to finding something in every method of execution as violating the constitutional provision against “cruel and unusual punishment.” And so states have been hamstrung trying to find acceptable methods of executing criminals who have been sentenced to death.

Just as with that strategy, the lawsuit against detaining parents with their children was successful. Though the detention centres are fenced-in equivalents of low-budget motels, a federal judge ruled that it is unconstitutional to keep children there. Subsequent negotiations yielded a consent decree that set a maximum of 20 days for children to be kept in such facilities.

But given that the immigration courts are clogged up, hardly any such case can be adjudicated in so short a time. To manage the dilemma, the Obama administration began a policy of releasing families to the care of relatives or charity organizations with the proviso that they would show up in court when so summoned. But few would take such chances. They disappeared.

It was in this context that Trump proclaimed his zero-tolerance policy without considering the implications. It is a policy that couldn’t be legally implemented without doing the morally consternating: taking away children from their parents. Now that Trump has signed an executive order stopping the practice, the question becomes what next?

On Tuesday, a federal judge ordered the government to reunite the separated parents and children within 30 days. But how is that to be done without violating the previous court order against keeping children in detention?

It all goes to show what happens when components of a polity take measures without regard for the broader implication. When pro-immigrant groups sued against detaining children with their parents, they didn’t reckon with the much worse outcome of taking the children away from their parents. Nor did the judge who ruled in their favour. And when Trump proclaimed a zero-tolerance policy, he never realised that it would result in a public relations disaster.

This analysis would be incomplete without reference to the origin of the debacle: the challenges of governance and the economy of Central America countries. Until the governments find a way to make their countries safe enough and comfortable enough, their citizens will continue to risk their lives to make perilous journeys to American borders. And they will continue to take their chances at detention centres rather than go back home.

No meal for Trump aide

While the children-parent separation drama played out, there was an even more telling demonstration of Americans’ polarisation. President Trump’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and her family were refused service at a restaurant. It wasn’t because they were disorderly or bodily offensive. The restaurant staff decided not to serve them because they intensely object to Trump’s polices. Wow!!!

Super Eagles home-bound

Perhaps no reader wants to be reminded that the Super Eagles came within minutes of advancing in the World Cup. But they have no reason to hang their heads. They are one of the youngest and least experienced teams in the World Cup. Yet they acquitted themselves rather well.

We could ponder some “What ifs.” What if the referee had awarded them three earned penalty kicks instead of just one in the game against Argentina? What if Coach Gernot Rohr had substituted sooner to relieve weary legs and withstand and counter-attack Argentina’s desperate onslaught? What if ….?

There’s no point asking. We now have to keep our eyes on 2022 in Qatar.

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